Youths infuriated by a lack of political reforms rioted in Tonga's capital Thursday, attacking the prime minister's offices, overturning cars and setting fires that destroyed businesses downtown, officials and witnesses said.Australia said it would consider sending security forces to the South Pacific nation if the government requested it, after overwhelmed police were left standing by as gangs of youths roamed the streets of Nuku'alofa smashing windows and looting shops.Some semblance of control began returning to the city late Thursday after hours of unrest, as police started moving bystanders out of the central business district.But as night fell, fires burned unchecked and looters moved unchallenged through the streets with apparently stolen goods, Mary Fonua of the Matangi Tonga news Web site told The Associated Press.Witnesses estimated more than half the city's central shopping area had been razed by fires that spread from building to building in high winds.... http://www.foxnews.com

Iraq's higher education minister has said he fears some ministry workers kidnapped by gunmen on Tuesday have been tortured and killed. Abd Dhiab said some of the 70 or so captives who have since been released were badly beaten. They were among scores of workers taken hostage when the gunmen raided an education ministry building in Baghdad. In continuing violence meanwhile, gunmen killed nine people in an ambush on a bakery in the east of the capital. In an interview with the BBC, Mr Dhiab said he was "very much concerned" for the remaining captives' well-being. He said there were "rumours and reports that some of them have been killed, even a number of those who have been freed were treated very badly, some of them had their legs and hands broken". ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6153316.stm

Police searched for a gunman after a series of shootings killed two people and wounded three others in the span of 10 minutes Thursday morning. All the shootings were in a three- to four-block area on the city's west side, Detroit police spokesman James Tate said.A 58-year-old woman and a 48-year-old man died in the shootings after 6 a.m., Tate said.He said the woman was shot first, inside a vehicle in front of a day care facility. There were no children at the day care at the time, and the shooting didn't appear to be related to the facility. The man was shot just around the corner....http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-16-detroit-shootings_x.htm?csp=34

Scientists have obtained the most extensive DNA profile of Neanderthal man from a fragment of bone of an individual who died 38,000 years ago - a few thousand years before the entire species became extinct. An analysis of the genetic material confirms that the Neanderthal in question was male and his species probably did not interbreed with anatomically modern humans - Homo sapiens.The researchers who isolated and deciphered the sequence of the Neanderthal DNA said their findings indicate that Neanderthals diverged genetically from the ancestors of modern humans about 400,000 years ago. It is known that H. sapiens and H. neanderthalenis lived alongside each other in Europe and the Middle East for thousands of years before the Neanderthals eventually disappeared about 30,000 years ago.Apart from the issue of what killed off the Neanderthals, the biggest unresolved question is whether the two human species interbred during the millennia when they shared the same habitat....http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article1987622.ece

While Americans in a faraway land debate their fate, Iraqis have already decided on the cure. The only problem is that there is more than one set of Iraqis. Shiites want their country back. Sunni Arabs want a strongman. They cannot agree.“We don’t want to see them in the streets,” a wiry man named Tariq said of American troops as he measured cloth in a tailor shop.Saad Abdul Razzaq, a Sunni whose brother was killed by Shiite militiamen a week ago, was of the strongman school: “Democracy is not working. Only power can control Iraqis.”As the United States grapples with difficult decisions over the war, Iraqis are also debating. But just when they need to band together, they have never been further apart. Their government has ground to a halt, paralyzed by disagreements between Sunni and Shiite parties. Militias are at the root of the security problem, but as long as the state remains helpless, many consider them its only solution....http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt11_16_6.htm

Washington state has asked the federal government to authorize a 3-month test program to scan the driver's licenses of people crossing the border with British Columbia.Gov. Chris Gregoire hopes a successful test of the technology will persuade the government not to require passports for all crossings starting in the summer of 2009. The governor and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell are trying to streamline the process for border crossings ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia. Gregoire offered the proposal this week to the Department of Homeland Security for a 90-day test of handheld wireless scanners to be used by U.S. border agents at the Blaine and Port Angeles crossings. The devices can scan the bar code on the back of U.S. and Canadian licenses to check for fakes and to see whether the driver's name is on security watch lists in either country. The scanners cost $10,000 each and already are being used at some military installations...http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-15-bordercrossing_x.htm?csp=34